Unorthodox: A 'Shower the People' Redux
by emcey squared
Summary: In an effort to help Allison cope with the arrival of Nate, Jack brings in his ex-wife, Abby. Meanwhile, there is a sudden outbreak of drowning victims and Nate puts up with Dr. Manlius, who's methods for obtaining the data from Nate's cells seem suspect.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer – If I owned _Eureka_, the plot would have been slashier.

Teaser – In an effort to help Allison cope with the arrival of Nate, the organic computer clone of the late Nathan Stark, Jack brings in his ex-wife, Abby. Meanwhile, there is a sudden outbreak of drowning victims and Nate puts up with Dr. Manlius, who's methods for obtaining the data from Nate's cells seem suspect.

Pairings – eventual Jack/AI!OrganicComputer!Nate

A/N – "You Don't Know Jack", the episode following "Shower the People" is going to have two reduxes. That's right people: two. One is going to be a continuation of this Nate universe. The other story will be by Kit and will feature the real Nathan Stark. "You Don't Know Jack" was a flashback episode and, as such, I had low expectations for it. I was thus pleasantly surprised to see that Eureka managed what Stargate never did; the flashback episode had an actual plot! Whoo-hoo! (I dreaded flashback episodes in Stargate. They were sooooo tedious.)

Anywho, I meant to get this posted earlier in the week, but after rereading it, I started getting a little iffy on the flow in some places. Kit told me to either post it as is or fix it, but to stop waffling on the subject because it was somewhat irritating and making her want to pull out her waffle iron and have breakfast for dinner. (That was Thursday night, I believe.) So I went through and rewrote some scenes and felt better enough about the story that I resent it to her and asked for beta/feedback on the changes. Normally this takes her a few hours. But I waited all day Friday and all day Saturday. There was no reply and I was getting a tad worried. Then, Saturday evening, I received a short note that wasn't entirely coherent telling me that Kit had a bad cold and was incredibly fuzzy from taking Tylenol Cold. Anyway, I got the beta/feedback stuff from her on Sunday and feel confident enough to post this version. The moral of this story is that I'm useless without my beta reader...

_**Unorthodox: A 'Shower the People' Redux**_

_Chapter One – In Which A Cheerless Party is Thrown_

They had the bunker to themselves, which was pretty awesome... or it should have been. Tess and Lexi (who had recently moved into a house with her boyfriend who's name Tess couldn't quite recall) had worked together to throw this baby shower for Allison in an attempt to both cheer her up and cushion the fact that she'd been forced onto medical leave by Henry, Zane, Fargo, and two of the infirmary doctors.

Earlier that week, the spaceship Columbia, created by Henry and his lost love, Kim Yamazaki, had landed in Eureka. Inside it had been an organic computer clone of one of the interns who'd worked on the ship: Nathan Stark. Seeing the clone, Nate, had been the start of a swift, downward spiral for Allison, who'd been repressing instead of grieving since the death of the real Nathan on what should have been their wedding day.

Tess hadn't been there for Allison's wedding or the aftermath of Nathan's death, something she truly regretted. But she was here now, to help pick up the pieces as Allison finally began to fall apart and could hopefully begin to make up for what she'd missed. And there could be no denying that Allison was falling apart.

Since arriving at Eureka, Tess hadn't seen much of Allison outside of work because, more often than not, Allison would be working long hours. At first, Tess had thought that Allison was acting that way out of worry over the signal from the Columbia, which they had thought was alien in origin at the time. Tess had gone to see Kevin a few times and the kid still remembered her as Aunt Tess; he'd been so excited to see her, but kept asking where his mother was. It had taken Henry and Jack talking to her to make her realize that Allison had barely seen Kevin in some time. She had Pilar, one of the local teens, babysitting Kevin after school everyday until Allison came home, which was often around eleven or twelve at night after Kevin had gone to sleep. In other words, the only time she was around her son was on weekends and in the mornings when she dropped him off at school on her way to work.

Now Tess knew that Allison adored Kevin more than anything and hated overworking, so this behavior was a little frightening to see in her friend. When Jack had told Tess about his plan to bring in his ex-wife, a psychiatrist by the name of Doctor Abby Carter, to see if she could help Allison, Tess had jumped at the chance to be the distraction. She tracked down Jack's sister, Lexi, who seemed to be the fun sort and they plotted out a very short-notice baby shower.

The problem was... nobody was in a good mood, except Lexi... who was on her way to joining the ranks of fake smiles any moment now.

Tess' problems had started earlier that day when the neural networking specialist arrived. They'd called him in the day before when Zane's SDS scanner still wouldn't work. Tess had spent most of that day with Allison and Kevin (while surreptitiously contacting Lexi and making plans for the baby shower) and come to work on Saturday annoyed with Henry and Jack for taking Nate out of GD Friday evening for the meteor shower. It was a nice gesture, but they should have arrested themselves for it.

Nate might act like a person, but he was a piece of fancy hardware. He was GD property and... oh well, that was a rant for another day. They meant well and nothing bad happened to the data.

Anyway... the neural networking specialist was an old 'friend' of Tess'. That is, if you used the term friend in a very loose manner. Dr. Bruce Manlius had known Tess back in her 'Tess the Mess' days and had been the sort of person who was nice to her face and mocking behind her back. So she smiled at him and introduced him around a little, and then fled to the steam room to fetch the people Lexi had invited to the baby shower. Lucky for her, Jack had already gathered them outside for her before he left.

That's where the second problem came in.

Allison knew a lot of people and they liked her. But none of them were actually what you would call _close_ friends, except for Tess, Jack, and Henry. Only, Jack was off picking up Abby from the airport in the closest city to Eureka and Allison was royally pissed off at Henry for the medical leave.

So Lexi, Tess, and Zoe were at the party – Jo ducked out halfway through the party by using the excuse that she was on duty since Jack was gone – and SARAH had gone silent after being rudely insulted by someone who Tess intended to dock pay from the next day. Lexi had also invited some of the researchers from GD that were developing baby-related products. This would have been fine... if they hadn't been fighting with one another over research funds in the steam room when Tess went to gather them up.

Monroe, Draper, and Bell... they were more infantile than the infants they researched for. Tess had taken Lexi and Zoe aside a few minutes into the party and thanked them for putting up with the bitchy ladies on Friday for her. They were behaving for Allison's sake, but Lexi and Zoe still deserved major kudos.

There were a handfuls of others, who were all looking to impress Allison with high-tech gadgets and expensive gifts. None of it was really lifting her spirits and no one could manage to get her to really smile. All in all, the party was a bust.

As she took another drink from her mimosa bottle, Tess sincerely hoped that Jack's drive back to Eureka with his ex-wife was infinitely less awkward than this party.

-=-=-=

The drive to Eureka was less awkward than Abby had feared. They'd chatted about Zoe's boyfriend, Lucas (hair boy), and her upcoming play. Abby's attention hadn't been all that great at the time. She'd been reading over the confidentiality agreement that Jack had handed her when she'd gotten into the car. Reading in the car wasn't something Abby particularly excelled at and she'd been glad for the distraction of talking to Jack whenever she started to feel a little car sick.

Once she'd signed everything and stuck the sheaf of papers into the glove compartment of the jeep, Jack began to explain to her just what was going on with Allison. He started from the beginning with what had happened on the day of Allison's wedding to Nathan, the time loops, and Nathan's death. From there, he told her about how quickly Allison had returned to work, the incident with the message in the necklace, and the way Allison had thrown herself into work and obsessed over the idea that Eva Thorne was a danger to Eureka. From there he moved on to what happened when he got fired and how Allison had been politely disinterested in his plans to get a job working for Homeland Security; she'd seemed more unable to grasp the fact that he might be going away then uncaring that he was leaving.

Then Jack started in on the signal from outer space that they'd thought might be aliens. Allison had called in Tess Fontana, a friend from school, to help facilitate communications with the possible aliens. But the closer the ship came, the more Allison had grown afraid; eventually she'd gotten to the point where she'd wanted to destroy the plasma generator the signal had directed the townsfolk to build and the ship itself. Her fear had been completely out of character for her, but was overshadowed by Fargo showing up and revealing the truth about the plasma generator's purpose; it was a space jump landing pad.

From inside that ship had come Nathan Stark's organic computer clone and the glass house that Allison had built to protect herself from dealing with her life had shattered. The organic techno-virus had simply made it apparent that Allison could no longer function properly as the head of GD until she sorted through her problems and let herself _grieve_.

The thing was, hearing about all these problems made Abby doubtful that Allison could heal so long as she stayed in Eureka. There was too much of Nathan Stark in this place, especially with Nate in the picture.

-=-=-=

Nate was currently hiding in Henry's GD office. He didn't like Doctor Manlius, hence the hiding away in Henry's office instead of in his lab where he was supposed to be. It wasn't that hard to figure out the code for unlocking the door to the lab and Nate remembered the location of Henry's office from two days before when the two of them had worked on a solution for the techno-virus together.

Dr. Manlius was the specialist that Henry had called in to unlock the data in Nate's DNA, but he was... condescending to an extreme. He directed all his comments at Henry, kept calling Nate an it, and, no matter how pissed off Nate got with the man, he refused to acknowledge that Nate had any say in what happened.

Of course, had Dr. Blake still been in charge, Nate had no illusions as to just how much say in things he'd have had. She didn't like him – didn't see him as a person – and wouldn't care what his final fate was. Having Henry in charge was a guarantee that his rights, such as they were, wouldn't be violated.

Still, the memory from that morning, when Dr. Manlius arrived, still rankled.

"_This is genius," Doctor Manlius circled Nate like a hawk... or a vulture, as he praised Henry. "A self-replicating mainframe with who knows how much storage in each cell. It has follicles and pores... a denser mass in the skeletal frame..."_

"_I am not an 'it'," Nate snapped. "I'm a 'he' and I can hear you perfectly fine."_

"_I meant no offense," Manlius assured him smarmily while Henry looked as though he was regretting the decision to bring in this neural networker. _

"_I'm sure you didn't," Nate drawled, the sarcasm clearly lost on Manlius._

"_This is a remarkable piece of technology you've created, Dr. Deacon," Manlius continued, oblivious to the great dislike Henry was developing towards him._

"_Kim Yamazaki and I were the designers," Henry corrected._

_Manlius just smiled. "Well, let's see what it can tell us."_

"_I can tell you that you're an ass," Nate muttered, glowering at the man. He'd learned quite a few new words lately – most from Zane – that were likely inappropriate in polite conversation. Henry's smirk at hearing Nate's comment let him know that he was using this particular new word correctly._

_Though Manlius twitched, he pretended not to have heard what Nate had said. "I need to test the data extraction process before we proceed to the full download." He pulled out a small, razor like knife._

_Nate hopped out of the chair and glared at him. "You need to learn how to ask nicely," he growled as Henry took a step forward. _

"_What are you doing?"_

"_I'm just trying to get a sample of its hair to test the process on," Manlius protested._

_Henry sighed and nodded, giving Nate a significant look. Reluctantly, Nate sat back down on the chair and shut his eyes as some of his short, curly, dark hair was cut away. He kind of liked his hair the way it was and hoped that he didn't look ridiculous now. _

_Tess came walking in looking frazzled. "Everything's clear, Henry. The test can start whenever Manlius is ready. The laser has been hooked up to GD's hydroelectric cooling system."_

"_It uses radiation," Nate concluded uncomfortably._

_Nodding in affirmation, Tess said, "Manlius' technology can temporarily alter the shape of an organic computing cell so an electrical impulse can duplicate the data that is locked within it's structure. If this works, we'll be able to copy you without damaging you."_

"_And if it doesn't work?" Nate asked worriedly. _

"_You'll stay safe," she responded confidently, but not really answering the question._

"_Doctor Fontana, would you assist?" Manlius asked. Though she followed after him, Tess looked unhappy to do so._

_Manlius turned on the charm as soon as he thought that no one but Tess could hear him, but she politely blew him off. Then the radiation hit the hair sample in the form of a bright, red laser and Nate stopped eavesdropping on Manlius._

_The data started rolling in and Manlius muttered, "and that's just a lock of hair. Imagine what's inside that thing."_

_Nate shuddered as he watched the hair inside the petri dish. It was smoking a little. _

Henry seemed to think that it was safe enough, though he wanted to run a few more tests before putting Nate through the experience of being hit by a radioactive laser. Nate, however, didn't want to try it out at all. There was something about Doctor Manlius that rubbed him the wrong way and it wasn't just the man's refusal to stop referring to him as an 'it'.

There was something else that was making Nate feel... itchy around Manlius and that laser. There was simply no other way to describe how he felt.

Itchy... like he'd fallen into a spider's web just moments before the kill.

A/N - Okay, so this is partially a 'who-done-it' story. The crime will be revealed in the third chapter, along with a handful of suspects. You, my dear readers, will be kept guessing until Chapter 6 as to who the guilty party (or parties) is (are). I'm curious to see how good I am at misdirection.

Who done it? Only time shall tell... Muahahaha...


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer – If I owned _Eureka_, the season would end with Zane proposing to Jo and her answering with a yes. :) (They're so cute together)

Teaser – In an effort to help Allison cope with the arrival of Nate, the organic computer clone of the late Nathan Stark, Jack brings in his ex-wife, Abby. Meanwhile, there is a sudden outbreak of drowning victims and Nate puts up with Dr. Manlius, who's methods for obtaining the data from Nate's cells seem suspect.

Pairings – eventual Jack/AI!OrganicComputer!Nate

A/N - I didn't much like Dr. Manlius in this episode. He seemed to want to be a caring sort of person, but lacked the ability to actually be caring. I also disliked the way Kim remained a weak personality. Despite all the strong, well developed AI's from the past, the writers made the organic computer AI a pale copy. All in all, this episode was something of a let down. Additionally, the sympathetic pregnancy symptoms will not appear in this story. It was the only really amusing part of the episode, but some things had to hit the cutting room floor. (If it had been anyone, it would have been Tess.)

_Chapter Two – In Which the Psychoanalysis Begins_

Jack was glad that Lexi had finally moved into a house with Duncan, who'd been accepted into one of GD's projects after the incident with the green bowling team. The two of them were good together and Jack found he rather approved of Duncan, who had, after the initial surprise of discovering Lexi's pregnancy, stepped up to the challenge of fatherhood. Duncan was also determinedly courting Lexi and, after talking to Jack, had admitted that he hoped to marry her at some point.

Of course, since it was Lexi who Duncan wanted to marry, he was going to have to find a way to ask her without making her think that he was only asking because she was pregnant. So it might be a while before anything happened on that front.

However, now that Lexi was out of the bunker, the guest room was free again in time for Abby's arrival. This meant that they didn't have to deal with the Bed and Breakfast, which was now being run two therapists by the names of Mandy and Patience; they were lovers and very sweet ladies, but Jack never liked going to the B&B because of the way it reminded him a little too much of Beverly and the way she had abused her position of trust in the town caused the deaths of only God knew how many of the town's citizens. At the very least, she'd caused Kim's death and Jack could never forgive her for the pain Henry had gone through because of her.

"Welcome back, Sheriff," SARAH chirped as the she opened the door.

"Hey, SARAH," Jack responded, happy to be home.

"Dr. Carter," SARAH added in a somewhat stiff tone, "welcome back to Eureka."

"SARAH," Abby greeted, "I hear you've managed to get Jack on a diet. I must say I'm very impressed; I could never manage to get him to eat healthy."

"Oh, I've had Zoe and Lexi's help," SARAH demurred, though her tone was now smug.

Speaking of Zoe... the blonde teen flew down the stairs and hugged Abby. "Hey, Mom!"

Abby hugged her back and then teasingly ruffled her hair. "Hi, Zoe. I hear you've landed a spot as Horatio."

"Yeah, it's going to be awesome. I'm really looking forward to it..." Zoe trailed off and pulled away. "But you're here to help Allison, right?" Her blue eyes were troubled as she asked this.

"Yeah. Jack said that she isn't doing to good."

"She isn't. We had a baby shower for her today and..." Zoe shook her head. "My best friend, Pilar, has been babysitting Kevin, Allison's son, every day of the school week for a little over a month now, but for a few months before it went from once or twice a week to nearly every day." Zoe's eyes were a little moist now. "He misses his mom so much, it breaks my heart when I hang out with him and Pilar."

Jack ducked into the kitchen, not wanting to hear anymore. Even when he'd been at his busiest as a Marshall he'd always managed to find the time for Zoe. During the divorce, it had been more difficult. Abby had hoped to use Zoe as a bargaining chip in putting their family back together and convincing Jack to take a desk job in one fell swoop – never mind that Abby had been the one at fault – but Zoe had unknowingly taken matters into her own hands with all the running away she did that finally brought the two of them to Eureka.

He couldn't imagine willingly pushing Zoe away the way Allison was doing with Kevin. Just the thought of it hurt.

A button was blinking beside the kitchen phone, indicating that there was a message waiting for him. Jack picked up the phone and tapped in the code for the voice mail.

"You have one new message," SARAH's voice told him through the receiver. "I thought you would appreciate getting Abby settled in before hearing it."

"Abby only plans on staying a day or two," Jack told SARAH reassuringly. "All she brought was that one bag."

"Good... I mean... here's the message," SARAH hurriedly brought up the message to play in Jack's ear. Jack chuckled in amusement at SARAH's spluttering.

"Uh, Jack?" Jack was taken aback for a moment. The voice was Nate's – the tone made that obvious – but for a split second Jack had thought of Stark. "I guess you're out right now; I can't seem to find your cell number, so... would you come by GD tomorrow? I'm using Henry's office phone to make this call, and I'm not really supposed to be in here right now... that'd make calling me back problematic. There's... there's this procedure I'm supposed to go through tomorrow that will let GD's computers record all the data in me, but there's something about it that doesn't sit right with. I'm trying to figure out what's wrong, but Henry thinks its all fine. If I can figure out what's bothering between now and 10:00 am tomorrow, and you help me convince Henry, then I can probably gain another twenty-four hours to... I don't know really. Maybe I'm just being paranoid since Dr. Manlius treats me like property and not a person.

"Anyway... even if I'm wrong about Manlius, I'd like you to be there when... my data gets recorded. I guess I need moral support or whatever the term is."

"End of recording," SARAH informed him. "So... that would be Nate, the organic computer version of Doctor Stark?"

"He looks like Stark did, but he's his own person, SARAH," Jack told her. "But, yeah... that was him."

"He sounds very worried."

"He is very worried," Jack agreed, putting down the phone. Nate was definitely spooked by something... and now Jack was too.

-=-=-=

"So..."

The look on Abby's face was not encouraging. Jack eyed her balefully. "What?"

"Are you in love with Allison? I know you had feelings for her the last time I was here." Abby certainly didn't pull her punches, so Jack decided to go with 'honest' because trying to hide things from Abby always wound up with him being interrogated by Abby much the same way he would a suspect.

"I love her, but I'm not in love with her." Jack shrugged when Abby lifted an eyebrow at him. It was the truth.

"I also noticed that, though you barely tolerated Nathan, you found him physically attractive." Of course she had to have picked up on _that_. "If Nate looks like Nathan like you said, then it stands to reason that you find him physically attractive as well. And, since their personalities are different, there's a good chance you might wind up finding him more than just physically attractive. I'm your ex-wife. I'm entitled, at least a little, to annoying your potential boyfriends or girlfriends _and_ I've got to make certain that they're not going to be stupid like I was when I ruined our relationship."

"Abby, you weren't..."

"Don't... you are the most giving person I know, Jack. But don't try to make me feel better about what happened... not when I've finally gotten to a place where I can admit I was the one at fault." Abby sighed and looked away.

"Yeah, I find Nate very attractive," Jack admitted. "But all of us, including him, are trying to figure out just who he is, so..."

"I'm being a little premature in my questions?"

"At the very least, talk to him before springing questions like that on me."

Abby laughed and the sound was rather musical. Her laugh was one of the many reasons Jack had been drawn to her in the beginning. The sound was like a reward for saying things that made her happy. Now it was a reminder of happier times... and the life he'd had with her. As painful as the divorce had been, separating from her had felt right at the time and, as much as he missed being with someone he loved, the idea of getting back together with her felt as wrong now as it did when she'd suggested it the year before.

Jack needed more than 'rewards' for making someone happy. He needed someone who would want to go out of their way to make him happy the way he would for that someone... the way he once had for Abby, though she never really did for him.

"Wake me up when you get up, okay? I'd like to go into town when you head to work so that I can sort of get a feel for Eureka's dynamic. It'll help me prepare for when I talk with Allison."

Nodding, Jack stood up from the couch. "I'll do that," he promised. "I'll drop your bag off in the guest room and then I'm going to turn in."

"I... I think I'll be up a while longer." Abby leaned back on the couch and stared at the wall where the fireplace was hidden.

-=-=-=

It was late and she knew she shouldn't have been driving in this condition, but she was scared. The rain was pouring down and she could barely see outside, but she was drenched already from sweat; the rain hadn't even touched her yet.

Doctor Monroe was on her way to GD in hopes of finding a doctor at the infirmary who would help her. She was sick and scared... and suddenly she couldn't breathe.

The car slammed into a tree after going off the road, but Monroe didn't notice. One hand clawed at her neck as she coughed up water while her other hand fumbled with the door handle; she'd forgotten that her car automatically locked when the engine started and no amount of pulling at the handle would make the door open. As her struggles came to a stop, Monroe's head tilted forward to rest on the steering wheel. The horn blared out, but there was no one around to hear.

As the last of Monroe's life drained out of her, the water that had formed a puddle on the floor around her feet continued to grow...


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer – If I owned _Eureka_, Nathan wouldn't have died. He'd have also been paired with Jack.

Teaser – In an effort to help Allison cope with the arrival of Nate, the organic computer clone of the late Nathan Stark, Jack brings in his ex-wife, Abby. Meanwhile, there is a sudden outbreak of drowning victims and Nate puts up with Dr. Manlius, who's methods for obtaining the data from Nate's cells seem suspect.

Pairings – eventual Jack/AI!OrganicComputer!Nate

A/N - Jo get's her own investigation. Go Jo! Though... there isn't actually much about her investigation in this chapter.

_Chapter Three – In Which Investigations Abound_

The hair sample was different.

Now, Nate knew that his cells were different from human cells; he looked human and the genetic material that made him look human was, well, human. But the rest... everywhere that a human had 'junk DNA', Nate had scientific data coded in binary. The nucleotides in his DNA were used to represent ones and zeroes on the 'readable' half of his DNA. Guanine and adenine would be used to represent one 'byte' of data and that byte would be followed by another made up of cytosine and thymine. They were the same types of nucleotides found in human DNA, but instead of making him 99 percent the same as the rest of humanity, it made him 100 percent different.

His DNA was also much longer – denser – than human DNA because his cells had been constructed to mimic that of an ordinary organic computer's cells. In other words, his DNA was kept in a supercoil – more tightly wound than the average DNA – so that it would take up less space in the nucleus.

The organic computer that had made up the original mainframe of the Columbus had lacked immunities to 'Earth-centric' diseases. The reasons had been because it freed up space to record data and, so long as the original mainframe remained the primary machine, that had been all well and good. The computer never actually left its sterile environment within it's 'shell', so it didn't need to worry about getting sick.

Much like the mainframe, the hair sample lacked Earth-centric immunities.

Nate, however, did have these immunities. He could only speculate, since the original computer had not given him the data on it's reasoning past the decision it made to create him, that since those immunities had existed within Stark's DNA and the Columbus had recognized that Nate would have to leave the ship, he'd been created with the same immunities as Stark. He'd probably catch the chicken pox if he ever got exposed to it, as well as any other disease that required catching it to develop an immunity, but otherwise he was as healthy as any human despite his inhuman origins.

He'd checked this several times through two additional hair samples and a blood sample. Somehow, the laser that Dr. Manlius used on the hair sample had wiped clean the sections of DNA that held the immunities Nate needed to survive. In fact, only those sections of DNA had been 'reverted' to useless, junk DNA. Nate had no doubt that if he stepped into that chamber a few hours from now he'd lose the immunities just as surely as the lock of hair had.

Considering that that the altered DNA was something specific that hadn't been checked before, Nate was fairly certain that this was deliberate. Dr. Manlius, or someone with access to his equipment, wanted Nate to die and wanted his death to look natural.

If it weren't three am, Nate would have immediately called Jack and Henry and explained to them what he'd just found. It _was_ three am, however, and the only people still in the building were workaholics who'd fallen asleep at their desks, the night shift of the security guards, and Nate, who didn't need to sleep yet. In a few weeks he would need to eat and sleep like any other human, but the changes were gradual. He'd likely start needing short naps in a few days and water to drink around the same time. The need for small snacks would start after that, slowly easing his digestive system into use. If the person who'd tried to wipe his DNA succeeded, however, he'd never make it a few days, never mind weeks.

Without his Earth-centric immunities, Nate would be dead between fifteen and fifty hours.

When Henry had given Nate the lab to use a few hours earlier so that he could 'assuage his worries' on his own, Henry's expression had said that the man was only humoring him. Somehow, Nate doubted Henry would find any humor in this when he got to work at eight...

-=-=-=

"So someone is trying to kill you," Jack summed up. Henry was still staring at the test results from Nate's research in shock.

"Basically... yeah. Someone is trying to kill me, but keep the data intact." Nate was perched on the edge of a lab table and swung his legs back and forth.

"In order to pull this off, the would-be killer would obviously need access to the laser, but they'd also need to have studied Nate's DNA in comparison with the DNA of other organic computers in order to specifically target the human immunities within Nate's DNA," Henry surmised. "Dr. Manlius seems to be the obvious suspect, but there were three assistants assigned to help him get everything set up – Doctors Irvine Gerald, Maria Hinton, and Jake Jarvis – and at least a dozen more who'd have access to the DNA samples from Nate and the knowledge necessary to sneak in and make adjustments." Henry's shock was swiftly changing into anger. "I had no idea that you even had Earth-centric immunities; Kim and I didn't program them into the original computer so that there would be more memory space. If you hadn't decided to study the hair sample for yourself, no one would have ever even realized that something was wrong... you'd have died and we'd have thought it was of natural causes."

"I'll get started on the investigation, then." Jack patted Nate on the shoulder. "We'll find the person responsible."

"But what will you charge him, or her, with?" Nate asked unhappily.

"Conspiracy to commit murder, most likely," Henry filled in.

Nate shook his head negatively. "That'll only stick if you can convince the DoD to reclassify me as an American citizen. As of right now, I'm still considered GD property, not employee. Odds are, they're not going to even consider changing my status until my data has been copied. So the worst you'll be able to pin on the would-be murderer is 'intent to destroy government property', which might not even stick since the actual data would still have been recorded in its entirety."

"No... no way," Jack turned to face his best friend. "Henry?" The look on the man's face said it all, though.

"Nate's right, Jack. If we want to charge the guilty party with 'conspiracy to commit murder', then Nate has to be officially reclassified as a sentient being. My superiors have incentive to continue considering him property so long as the only full set of data remains in him. We'll need to get the laser fixed and the data copied before you arrest anyone," Henry told him. "That way we can have a case for changing Nate's status, thus making the attempted murder charge stick."

Jack's cell rang before he could do more than nod, stunned that anyone could be treated as property when their life was in danger.

"Carter," he answered.

"Hey, it's Jo. A car stranded with a dead doctor in it was reported by Doctor Feldman about two minutes ago. I got to the scene and the deceased is Doctor Monroe; her car is filled with water, Carter. Apparently her car filled up with water in the storm last night, she couldn't get out, and drowned."

"You'll have to take lead on that investigation, Jo," Jack then filled her in on what Nate had found.

"Just send me a coroner and I'll join you as soon as I've wrapped up this case. I'm pretty sure the door's locking mechanism malfunctioned and she couldn't get out. In last night's storm, there might not have been a cellphone signal out here, which would've prevented her from calling for help. Though why she wouldn't have simply smashed out a window... well, you'll get my report when I'm done."

-=-=-=

After sending out Fargo to play coroner – the kid was good at assisting Henry, so Jack was reasonably certain that he'd do a good job for Jo – Jack headed off to join Henry and Nate at Dr. Manlius' lab. However, judging by the raised voices coming from within, telling Manlius that his project had been turned into a highly sophisticated murder weapon wasn't going all that well.

Tess was frozen at the door, eavesdropping, and she motioned for Jack to stay outside with her. "They've been at it ever since Henry and Nate went inside. Manlius still refuses to believe Nate's findings and Henry's got an edge to his voice that sounds like he's mentally reminding himself that you'd have to arrest him if he strangled Manlius."

"Only if there was evidence." Jack paused and then shook his head, "of course there'd be evidence..."

"I don't know... Henry's sneaky."

"We're standing right here, watching."

Tess smiled, but it looked forced. In fact, she looked as though she hadn't managed much sleep the night before.

"You okay?"

"Yeah... I'm fine. Let's go save Manlius," she drawled, leading the way inside.

"Tess," Manlius sent her a relieved look, "you know I'd never try to destroy a scientific and technical masterpiece such as this," he gestured to Nate. "Tell Henry that he's being over dramatic."

Jack's eyes slid over to the three assistants. What were their names again? Gerald, Hinton, and Jarvis... those names sounded right. One of them, a man who was about Jack's height with light blonde hair and brown eyes, was glaring at Nate, while the other two watched Manlius and Henry worriedly.

"It isn't just you, Doctor Manlius. We're all off the project until whoever did this is caught," the second male assistant, a redhead with deep blue eyes, said with more calm in his voice than on his face.

"I'm afraid so," Jack confirmed.

"I can't believe anyone would do something like that on purpose," the female assistant said, shaking her head.

"You never understand the motives when we watch _Cold Case_, Maria," the redhead teased. "This is real crime; it's no wonder you don't get it."

"You two watch cop shows?" Jack asked, surprised.

The redhead just grinned. "What can I say? Dt. Lilly Rush is really hot."

Maria laughed. "I like Scotty."

"Well, we should be getting out of here so that Dr. Deacon, Nate, and whoever else is going to be working on fixing the laser can get to work." Exchanging a significant look with Maria, the redheaded man got on one side of Manlius while she took the other. "Do you want us to go to the guard station or..."

"Just wait outside," Jack said. "I'm going to want to talk to all of you separately."

The blonde man nodded mulishly – Jack hoped the fact that the other two assistants were escorting Manlius out meant that the third assistant wasn't going to be too much of a problem in comparison – and they all left.

"Tess, would you stay and help us out?" Henry asked. Tess nodded enthusiastically. "Good, then now all I have to do is find Zane..."

A/N - In the next story, Nate'll get reclassified as a person, but it'll take time...


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer – If I owned _Eureka_, Fargo wouldn't be dating a crazy lady; he'd be dating someone worthy of him, not a psycho willing to literally steal another person's identity. (She scared me.)

Teaser – In an effort to help Allison cope with the arrival of Nate, the organic computer clone of the late Nathan Stark, Jack brings in his ex-wife, Abby. Meanwhile, there is a sudden outbreak of drowning victims and Nate puts up with Dr. Manlius, who's methods for obtaining the data from Nate's cells seem suspect.

Pairings – eventual Jack/AI!OrganicComputer!Nate

_Chapter Four – In Which the Concept of Sentience is Discussed_

Jo sighed in frustration as she walked into Cafe Diem. What should have been an open and shut case of drowning was turning out to be not so easily shut as she thought. After ruling out an accident, Jo had moved on to possible murder.

The only people who stood to gain from Monroe's death were her fellow baby-product researchers: Draper and Bell.

So Jo had tracked down the nearest of the duo – Draper – who was supposed to be having lunch at Cafe Diem. But there was no sign of Draper... just a lot of water on the floor and customers hurriedly finishing their meals to get away from the oncoming flood.

"Jo?" Zoe hurried over with an empty plate balanced on one hand. "Is Doctor Monroe really dead?"

"Yeah... she is." Jo placed a comforting hand on the teen's shoulder. Zoe, as well as her father, had become like family to Jo over the past two years and Jo wished she knew how to console her. It suddenly occurred to Jo that this was likely the first time since Stark that someone Zoe had known died abruptly and, seemingly, without reason. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine, Jo." Zoe put on a brave smile. "You aren't here for lunch, are you? 'Cause Vince and I can't seem to find the source of the leak, so we're trying to shut down once everyone already here is done."

"Actually, I'm here looking for Doctor Draper. I'd heard she was in here, but... I don't see her. She must have left already." Though... there was an abandoned laptop next to a mostly empty plate. It could have been anyone's, but Jo was hopeful that it meant her quarry was still there.

"She was here just a moment ago," Zoe said, glancing around. Her eyes landed on the laptop as well. "That's her computer; she's probably in the bathroom."

"I'll knock and see," Jo said, letting Zoe get back to work.

Walking up to the bathroom door, Jo knocked on it. There was no answer, but the little 'occupied' symbol was visible so she tried again. "Dr. Draper, are you in there?" Still no response. "Dr. Draper?" Jo put her hand on the doorknob and twisted. Before she could even pull it open, though, the door burst open with a splash and Dr. Draper's corpse collapsed onto the ground at Jo's feet.

Well damn. So much for that suspect.

"Oh my god. She's dead!" Zoe was staring at Draper's body in horror, so Jo pulled the girl outside and settled her into one of the chairs.

"I'll be right back," Jo promised and then went back inside. "Okay, I need everybody to go outside in an orderly fashion. This just became a crime scene." As the small crowd wandered outside, Jo pulled out her cellphone. She needed to call Fargo so that he could act as coroner again, Jack so that he'd could be updated on the case, and Lucas to come comfort his girlfriend. Zoe looked like she could use her boyfriend right about now, anyway.

-=-=-=

Jack saved Doctor Manlius' interview for last.

The first assistant he spoke to – Dr. Gerald, the scowling blonde – had admitted that Nate's presence rather freaked him out, but insisted that he was innocent. Gerald mentioned that Dr. Jarvis, the redhead, had been one of the researchers that Nate had scared out of his lab on the day of the techno-virus.

So Jarvis become the second person that Jack interviewed. Jarvis found the idea of being mad at Nate over what happened rather amusing, especially since Nate had apparently already apologized for it. He dismissed what happened because 'Nate was clearly afraid that he was responsible for hurting someone'. Jarvis was pretty likeable; Jack rather hoped that the perpetrator wasn't him.

Doctor Hinton was the third interview and, though she was appalled at the concept of murder, she seemed rather indifferent where Nate was concerned. She wasn't certain if he was genuinely sentient, but felt that it wasn't her place to judge. If he was human at heart, then he was a truly amazing creation. If he was simply an impressive mimic, then he was still an amazing creation. She knew she'd never know the answer for sure, so she didn't feel like quibbling over the details.

Manlius, however...

"This is ridiculous," Manlius grumbled. "There is nothing wrong with my laser."

"You saw the test results," Jack said calmly. "Did they looked faked to you?"

"No..."

"What cause would Nate have to want to falsify the tests?"

"It... it is programmed to act human and my refusal to play along triggers its response to mimic human resentment," Manlius explained.

"What makes you so certain that he doesn't genuinely dislike you?" Jack tilted his head to the side a little. "Why do you believe he's just a program?"

"Because it is just a program," Manlius said patronizingly. "It might look human, Sheriff, but it's just a construct created to mimic Nathan Stark's behavior in order to better fit in as it fulfills its mission."

"Then why doesn't he act just like Stark did?" Jack grinned as Manlius paused, uncertain how to answer that. "I had this friend in college, a chemist, who had a tendency to liken the human body to a giant, chemically run circuit board with DNA as the base code. Now, I'm no scientist, but that certainly sounds like an organic computer to me.

Finally, Manlius shrugged. "You are right about humans being complex, naturally occurring organic computers, but I simply don't believe that Nate is sentient like we are. I can't prove it isn't sentient anymore than you can prove it is, though. I do believe that it is a unique piece of technology and that, if the tests are correct, the responsible party should be held accountable."

"Well, questions of sentience aside, who had access to the equipment for your project?"

"Just me and Doctors Hinton, Gerald, and Jarvis," Manlius frowned, adding, "there were a few times when just one of us was left alone with the laser apparatus... except for Doctor Hinton. She hasn't actually been alone in there today. Dr. Jarvis had about thirty minutes alone with the laser after I had it brought in, obviously I've been alone with it since I built it, and Dr. Gerald had about ten or fifteen minutes where it was just him in there. It's never been left completely unattended since I arrived with it."

Jack nodded mulling over what he'd been told so far. "Besides you, who else on your team has had access to samples of Nate's genetic profile?"

"Just Dr. Jarvis as far as I know. The other two are neural networkers, like me. Jarvis is a bio-expert. I was almost assigned Dr. Mike Hanners instead, but he refused to have anything further to do with Nate..." Manlius trailed off, his eyes unfocused as he tried to recall the exact words. "Hanners said that he wanted nothing more to do with the man responsible for bringing a plague ship to Eureka. His manner was rather alarming; even if he hadn't refused, I'd have picked Jarvis over him."

-=-=-=

Jack made Henry, Zane, and Tess break for lunch with him and, after much persuading that being sociable was a good thing, convinced Nate to join them even though he didn't have to eat yet.

His mind was stuck on what he'd learned from the four scientists during his interviews. They were all pretty good suspects. For all he knew, they were all in on it. But... that didn't seem right. Mentally, Jack went ahead and discarded Maria Hinton from his list of suspects.

Manlius lacked any sort of respect for Nate, had access to Nate's genetic profile, and had developed the laser – so he definitely could have programmed it to wipe specific sections of DNA. But Manlius had no motive. Despite his refusal to believe in Nate's sentience, he had no particular reason to want Nate destroyed.

Jake Jarvis seemed friendly enough, but it might be a front. He had access to both the DNA profile and the laser and had a minor motive for attempted murder. The motive, however, was too flimsy and Jack's instinct told him that Jarvis was sincere when he said he'd already forgiven Nate.

Irvine Gerald was afraid of Nate for a reason he'd refused to elaborate on and had the knowledge of how to reprogram the laser. But he lacked access to Nate's DNA profile. So if Gerald had something to do with the conspiracy, then there had to be a second person involved.

"You know, I distinctly recall being told that I should be sociable and join everyone for lunch," Nate teased, jerking Jack out of his reverie, "but you're the one being quiet and withdrawn."

"Sorry, I tend to get a one-track mind when I'm working on a case," Jack apologized, amused when Nate affected a mollified expression. "How goes the work on the laser?"

"We've almost finished fixing the problem," Nate told him. Then, eyeing the slice of pecan pie on Jack's tray, Nate let out a somewhat unhappy sigh. "That smells so good... I wish I could eat."

"It's my favorite kind of pie," Jack said a little smugly. Then, more charitably, "you'll have to try some as soon as you can eat."

"Sounds good to me," Nate said.

"How is the investigation going, by the way?" Henry asked.

"I think I have a theory," Jack said, "but for now I need to keep gathering evidence. How was the laser tampered with?"

Zane launched into an explanation of how the perpetrator – or perpetrators – had altered the laser to specifically remove the gene sequences for the various human immunities after downloading the data. Most of it went over Jack's head, but every so often Henry or Tess would cut in and simplify things for him, so he probably understood more than he thought he did. By the time they were done, Jack had finished up his lunch and was ready to move on to his dessert.

Taking a bite of the pie, Jack smiled, closed his eyes, and went "mmm.... delicious."

Nate glared. "Now you're taunting me."

"I have no idea what..."

"That thing just goes everywhere, doesn't it!" The angry voice could be heard from across the GD cafeteria.

"Mike, keep your voice down," Jake Jarvis said, staring worriedly at his companion.

"I will not. That... that thing brought a plague ship to our town and is responsible for the death of Ned. But does anyone think of him? All I hear is, I'm sorry Dr. Lieber's dead. Now isn't our new supercomputer amazing?" Mike was clearly referring to Nate, who had tensed up.

The smile dropped off of Nate's face and he looked down.

Jarvis, however, was growing angry. "That's not true, Mike, and you know it. You should be on leave, not pressuring yourself like this. Ned wouldn't have wanted..."

"We'll never know, now will we," Mike snarled, pushing Jarvis away. "My lover is dead, remember?" He stormed off and Jarvis just stood there for a moment, staring after him.

Maria walked up and linked arms with Jarvis and the two of them settled down at one of the tables, talking quietly.

"Who was that?" Jack asked.

"Doctor Mike Hanners," Tess supplied. "He's pretty infamous in the bio-tech department for his temper."

"If I had known the ship was infected," Nate began to say, only to be cut off back Jack.

"Hey. It was the original computer's oversight not to let you know about the virus it had," Jack reached over and put his hand on Nate's shoulder as startled, bright green eyes jerked up to look into his. "What happened wasn't your fault, okay?"

"Yeah..." Nate gave him a rather feeble smile, but it was enough.

Jack took another bite or two of his pie, but he felt like he'd lost his appetite. He really needed to figure out who had reprogrammed the laser before they struck again. Hanners' outburst had driven the point home without any doubt; Nate's life was still in danger.

A/N - Now there's a new suspect and Jo got to do a little investigating. The next chapter is basically all Jo, though. She's cool... I wish she was my mentor.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer – If I owned _Eureka_, Eva Thorne would eventually return. She was awesome.

Teaser – In an effort to help Allison cope with the arrival of Nate, the organic computer clone of the late Nathan Stark, Jack brings in his ex-wife, Abby. Meanwhile, there is a sudden outbreak of drowning victims and Nate puts up with Dr. Manlius, who's methods for obtaining the data from Nate's cells seem suspect.

Pairings – eventual Jack/AI!OrganicComputer!Nate

A/N - I found the idea of synthetic water to be ridiculous. But it wasn't the most ridiculous thing they've had on there, so I'm running with it anyway. This chapter is all Jo. I'm not quite sure I've got her character down right, so please bear with me.

_Chapter Five – In Which There is a Great Deal of Synthetic Water_

Somehow, the water that had drowned Draper and Monroe had come from within themselves. According to Fargo, who was doing a surprisingly good job as the coroner, the water was all 'synthetic' water, a type of pure, uncontaminated H2O manufactured by GD's very own Doctor Rivers.

Jo rather wished she could swap investigations with Jack. He was good with the bizarre and she really wanted to chase down a murderer. Crazy science gone bad usually meant that Jo wouldn't get to pull out her gun and threaten someone; murder investigations did. But Jack had entrusted her to get the job done on her own and, if Jo was ever going to manage landing the Sheriff's job, she needed to do impressive work regardless of what the investigation entailed.

Still... people were overproducing water and drowning themselves. This town was insane.

Walking into Dr. Rivers' lab, Jo felt like she'd stepped into a water reclamation center... and then immediately realized that was likely just what the lab's function was. The waterfalls were certainly quite lovely.

"Dr. Rivers?" Jo called, glancing around.

A pretty woman with long, curly, chocolate brown hair walked up to her. "You must be Deputy Lupo. Is there something I can help you with?" Unlike most of GD's scientists, Rivers wore what looked like a modified wet suit.

"Synthetic water has come up in my investigation of two drowning victims who turned up today," Jo told her. "What can you tell me about it?"

"Synthetic water?" Rivers shrugged and gestured for Jo to follow her. "I've been in synthetic water research for ten years. It's a spectacular achievement. The proper rotation of the hydrogen atoms alone has been..."

Jo held up a hand to cut off the scientist. "What's wrong with regular water?"

"Well, it's fine... but there's a difference between fine and perfect," Rivers said with a condescending smile.

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes – she'd dealt with enough attempts to attain 'perfection' to last a lifetime, thank you very much – Jo told her, "both victims were filled with synthetic water. In fact, it was like their bodies were producing the water. How could something like this happen?"

"That's impossible," Rivers denied. "My water is perfectly safe. It's used throughout Eureka; trapped and recycled right through here. You probably showered in it this morning."

"That's not particularly reassuring," Jo grumbled, repressing the urge to shudder. "What sort of filtration is used on the water?"

"Everything is broken down into molecules and anything that isn't made of only hydrogen and oxygen is removed. It's the best on or off the planet."

"Off the planet?" Jo echoed in confusion.

"Oh, yes. Syn water is the only way we'll ever be able to colonize space. Regular water can't be compressed, but..." she led the way over to the part of the lab that wasn't devoted to water reclamation. Picking up a water bottle, Rivers popped it open and let it start pouring out into a sink. "One canister can start an entire civilization. It's perfectly harmless." She took a drink from the water even as Jo backed away from it a few steps.

Jo watched the water continue pouring out of the canister for a few moments, a bit impressed with how it kept coming out long after the bottle should have been completely emptied. "How do you compress synthetic water?"

"There's an isotope used to compress the molecular bonds. It disappears when the molecule reforms."

"Could anything cause the isotope to reassert itself and... recompress the water?"

"Nothing I know of..." Rivers' looked intrigued by the idea however and Jo could tell that she was itching to do a little investigative research of her own.

Jo's cell phone started ringing and she flipped it open before bringing it to her ear. "Lupo."

"Hey..." Fargo said, sounding antsy. "Another body's been found. It's at the GD sauna in the gym..."

"Who is it?"

"Um... I don't know. I, uh... that is..."

"We'll find out when we get there," Jo sighed. "Meet me there, okay Fargo?"

"Sure thing, Jo."

Flipping the cell closed, Jo gave Rivers a significant look. "There's been a third victim. If there's even the slightest possibility that the isotope used to compress your water can be caused to recompress, then I need you to look into it for me. Until we know what's causing this, there could be other potential victims out there that we just don't know about yet."

Rivers went pale and nodded. "I'll start researching the problem right away, Deputy. I'll let you know the moment I learn something useful."

"I appreciate it."

-=-=-=

Sometimes Jo forgot that GD had the sauna. It was used by GD employees who needed a break from their often difficult research. There was a monitoring system set up, however, to ensure that no employee abused the privilege.

"I found her this morning when I opened up. She usually closes the place by herself after she finishes cleaning," the gym director told Jo as she led the Deputy and Fargo into the facilities.

"She was here all day before, then?" Jo clarified.

"Yeah, her shift starts at noon; she takes care of the steam and sauna during the day then sanitizes the whole area after she's done." The director brought them into one of the hot tub rooms, which was filled with water and had a corpse floating at the top.

"I guess this kills our theory that the baby shower was the cause," Jo muttered and then turned to Fargo.

"Maybe this one was just clumsy," Fargo guessed as he set down his kit and knelt beside the edge of the tub.

"Slipped, whacked her head, and drowned in the tub," Jo theorized. "It's possible. But..." something felt off to Jo and she wasn't sure what. If Jack were there, he'd probably have figured it out already. Jo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She could do this without Jack. "Her gloves are on. You don't fill the tub to clean it, right?"

The director nodded. "It was empty when she started."

Fargo pulled out a gadget and tested the water. A few seconds later he held it up. "It's syn water."

Jo's cell started to ring again and she had a bad feeling that someone else had just turned into old faithful...

-=-=-=

"Do you remember Dr. Bell from the baby shower?" Dr. Katy Johnson asked Jo as soon as she entered the infirmary. Dr. Johnson had been at the baby shower the day before and she'd met Jo a few times before; she was a medical researcher that regularly volunteered her time to the GD infirmary, so Jo wasn't too surprised to find her running things here since Henry, Tess, and Zane were busy working on the laser problem and Allison was on leave.

"Yeah, she was the... uh, the baby bottle lady," Jo said. Bell had started passing out baby bottles full of mimosas just before Jo left the party.

Johnson led Jo and Fargo over to where Bell lay in a specialized bio-bed similar to the one Carter had been put in when he'd briefly gone out of phase with the rest of reality. There was an oxygen mask over Bell's face and her hair and face were drenched. Her clothes were dry, but that wasn't likely to last long. A metallic looking thermal blanket covered her to help keep her body temperature in check.

"Is it synthetic water?" Jo asked softly.

"Yeah... Fargo had us testing people from the shower; she's lucky we got to her in time." Johnson shuddered a little as she added, "we got to her before her lungs started to fill and we only had five minutes after that."

"Is she the only one?" Fargo was staring at Dr. Bell sadly and Jo felt bad for him. Three deaths and one near-death all on his first day on the job as town coroner. Not exactly the most encouraging way to start a solo career.

"So far," Johnson confirmed. "We can arrest her drowning symptoms by artificially resperating her, but if we can't figure out what's causing this and stop it then it will only be a matter of time before the overabundance of water in her system causes her organs to fail."

"Fargo? Didn't you say something about syn water and the bloodstream?"

"It can't be absorbed through surface contact; it has to be entered into the bloodstream directly." Fargo eased over to start looking at Bell's chart.

"Is that what we're looking at?"

"Potentially," Johnson shook her head ruefully. "I doubt it, though. If the syn water was in her bloodstream and multiplying like we've seen in her sweat, lungs, and various other organs, she'd already be dead. Water in the blood thins it out, making blood cells less able to reach other cells to transfer oxygen. Also, the bloodstream is filtered by the kidneys and liver; put too much water in the blood, the kidneys won't be able to handle it; they shut down and she dies. If this was in her blood, she'd be dead already for a dozen different reasons."

A/N - Now I'm no expert, but even I know that if the water they were sweating out and filling their lungs up with was decompressing in their blood stream, bad things would happen. Like all the blood vessels exploding from being forced to hold too much liquid.

Next chapter: Jack reveals his theory and makes an arrest (or two).


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer – If I owned _Eureka_, Larry would have been put in jail for the stunt he pulled on the first episode of Season 3. Then we wouldn't have to deal with him any more.

Teaser – In an effort to help Allison cope with the arrival of Nate, the organic computer clone of the late Nathan Stark, Jack brings in his ex-wife, Abby. Meanwhile, there is a sudden outbreak of drowning victims and Nate puts up with Dr. Manlius, who's methods for obtaining the data from Nate's cells seem suspect.

Pairings – eventual Jack/AI!OrganicComputer!Nate

A/N - Here we go, the big reveal! Let's see who was right about who-done-it.

_Chapter Six – In Which Motives Are Revealed_

The security footage showed Jack just what he'd expected to find. During the fifteen – well, closer to twenty, really – minutes that Dr. Gerald was alone with the laser, Dr. Hanners had joined him for about eleven minutes, the amount of time necessary for the two of them to reprogram the laser to remove Nate's immunities.

Jack stopped the footage and turned around to face his 'audience': Nate, Henry, Zane, Tess, Manlius, Gerald, Hinton, and Jarvis. "Dr. Gerald, you and Dr. Hanners reprogrammed the laser, didn't you?"

"It's unnatural," Gerald growled. "It's an affront to God and a testament to human arrogance. It must be destroyed." Jack had heard enough and he pulled out his handcuffs.

Jarvis looked a little ill as he stared at the paused footage of Hanners leaving the lab. "Mike's always had a temper, but... I never thought he..." Hinton wrapped her arms around Jarvis, pulling the taller scientist into a hug. "I'm so sorry," he added, looking at Nate even as he returned Hinton's hug. "If I'd known what he was planning..."

"You couldn't have known," Nate interrupted. "This isn't your fault."

Jack smiled at Nate's words as he slipped the cuffs onto Gerald's hands. "Dr. Irvine Gerald, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent..." he went on to finish reading Gerald his rights and looked over at the door impatiently as Jo showed up, Hanners in cuffs with her.

"I'll get them back to the station," Jo volunteered. "One of the security guards, Lisa Manelli, offered to help get them into the cell. I figured you'd want to stick around here for a little while longer." She glanced over at Nate. Then her eyes landed on Zane and she smiled.

"Are you sure, Jo?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I'll be back as soon as Manelli and I have finished putting these two psychos behind bars. I'm still working on the whole dry-drowning issue." Jo waved her hand dismissively as a woman wearing a guard's uniform walked in and latched on to Gerald's arm.

"Hi, Sheriff," Manelli greeted brightly. "Mind if I take this guy off your hands?" Manelli was one of the few female security guards on GD's payroll (Jack thought that the majority were men because then they all looked identical in the uniforms with the hats. Allison always denied this, though it never failed to make her smile when he - or Jo - brought up the subject) and a friend of Jo's. The two of them were always competing (in a friendly fashion) over who the better shot was. Mostly it was Jo, though Manelli managed to tie with her a lot.

"By all means," Jack said, taking a step back as Manelli dragged off the muttering Dr. Gerald, who was now talking about signs of the apocalypse or something along those lines. Dr. Hanners was trying to meet Dr. Jarvis' eyes, but the other man wouldn't even look at him as Jo dragged him away.

There was a pause and then Henry said, "we think the problem with the laser has been fixed, but we're in the middle of running a few tests just to be sure. If the rest of you will join us, I'm sure things will go much faster."

As the rest of the scientists left the security station for the laser lab, Nate hung back. "That was impressive. You hadn't even seen the footage when you called Lupo to have her arrest Hanners. How did you know he was even involved?"

"Gut feeling," Jack responded, walking over to stand by Nate. "My instinct isn't always right, but it is often enough that I was positive they did it together. Gerald was the only one on the team who actually disliked you and Hanners... well, you heard him at lunch."

"This planet... this town is lot scarier than outer space," Nate drawled. "At least out there I knew none of the dangerous things that could kill me meant it in a personal manner. This... has been unsettling."

"I'll bet. It's not always going to be this way, you know."

"I know," Nate agreed. Then he smiled and his eyes brightened, making Jack's mouth go a little dry at the sight. "But when it is this way... you'll be there to keep me safe, right?"

"Definitely," Jack's voice came out a little huskier than intended as he stared into Nate's intense eyes. Abby's question from the night before, about whether he found Nate attractive or not, came back to the front of his mind and all he could think was 'yeah, definitely attracted here...'

-=-=-=

Jo and Manelli had just gotten the two doctors into the back of Jo's car when her phone went off. She grabbed it out of her pocket and flipped it open. "Lupo."

"Deputy, it's Dr. Rivers. I managed to track down the source of the recompressed water, like you asked."

Jo froze and signaled for Manelli to wait. "What did you find?"

"Yesterday, there was test of a laser that uses an incredibly high level of radiation. The concentration of the radiation was enough to reactivate the isotopes. I tracked down where the water went after recompacting and it was the steam rooms at the gym's sauna."

"About what time was that?" Jo asked.

"12:08 pm."

"Thanks." Jo flipped her phone shut and tossed her car keys at Manelli. "Get those two into the cell for me. The door locks automatically, so just toss them in and shut the door behind them." Jo started to turn around.

"Wait! Where are you going?"

"Jack's in trouble!" Jo shouted, taking off at a run for the doors of GD.

The compressed water had been turned to steam, which was what the sauna attendant had breathed in. Bell, Draper, and Monroe had been in there at the same time, planning out the final stages of the baby shower... and Jack had gone into the sauna in order gather them outside the gym to wait for Tess.

-=-=-=

Jack and Nate had missed the elevator that the others had taken, so they'd gotten into the next one. It was just them and Nate found he rather liked that. The best parts of his day so far had been the time he'd spent with Jack, though watching the blonde eat the pecan pie had made him feel twitchy and warm for reasons he wasn't yet quite sure off.

He had an idea, though. Nate thought that perhaps he was developing feelings for Jack. After all, he found Jack to be physically attractive; the Sheriff was most certainly an aesthetically pleasing individual. And he was funny and smart... and his smile made Nate feel flustered and his eyes...

Okay, so Nate _knew _that he was developing feelings for Jack. He'd been on Earth for four days and he already had a crush on someone.

But that someone was starting to look not so good... Jack was beginning to sweat heavily and looked to be having some difficulty breathing. "Jack?" The Sheriff's short, dark blonde hair was starting to plaster itself to his head and darken with water.

"Jack?" Nate repeated, tapping Jack's shoulder worriedly.

"I think maybe I should... should get to the infirmary..." Jack panted, struggling for air. "Suddenly I'm not feeling... all too..." he started to cough and then stumbled backwards, dropping to the ground.

Nate crouched beside Jack, a sense of deja-vu overcoming him. Just a few days ago he'd knelt by Zane as a mysterious condition nearly killed the scientist. Now he was beside Jack as an equally mysterious condition started cutting off Jack's air supply. This time, however, Nate knew just what to do.

Jack couldn't breathe for himself, so someone was going to have to do it for him.

"Try not to take this the wrong way, Jack," Nate said and then brought his mouth down to cover the blonde's even as his hand moved to keep Jack's nose closed. He breathed into Jack's mouth and was gratified to feel with his free hand that it was working. Jack's chest rose and fell as air got through.

Moments later the door dinged open and Nate looked up, feeling a bit dizzy himself. He was surprised to realize that he was crouched in water nearly half an inch deep, which was spilling out into the corridor.

'Where did that come from?' he wondered absently before pinning the scientists standing at the door, staring at him and Jack, with a glare. "Get a medical team here now!" he snapped before returning to breathing for Jack.

Distantly, Nate heard the sounds of the scientists snapping into action. He just hoped that help didn't arrive too late.

A/N - In case you're wondering, Manelli got the bad guys locked away just fine, brought back Jo's car, and told her that she has the most awesome car ever. Lisa Manelli's next big purchase is totally going to be a Subaru.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer – If I owned _Eureka_, TABITHA and SARAH would be best friends.

Teaser – In an effort to help Allison cope with the arrival of Nate, the organic computer clone of the late Nathan Stark, Jack brings in his ex-wife, Abby. Meanwhile, there is a sudden outbreak of drowning victims and Nate puts up with Dr. Manlius, who's methods for obtaining the data from Nate's cells seem suspect.

Pairings – eventual Jack/AI!OrganicComputer!Nate

_Chapter Seven – In Which Farewells are Spoken_

Watching Jack just lay there, unconscious, with the respirator breathing for him was frightening. Despite Nate's best efforts, Jack was still dying. He might still be alive now, but the water was continuing to flood his system and his organs would eventually fail.

Nate had to restrain the urge to hit something. Jack had just saved him by catching the people who'd attempted to kill him and now Jack was the one who needed saving. Nate had no idea what to do.

So he stood watch over Jack.

He wasn't alone, though. Jo Lupo was there. She'd come running into the infirmary not long after Jack had arrived and, after hearing how Nate had kept Jack breathing, had actually hugged Nate for saving Jack's life. Then there was Zoe Carter, Jack's daughter. She hugged Nate too and then sat by her father's side. Lucas (his last name Nate was fairly certain hadn't been mentioned) was Zoe's boyfriend and he introduced himself to Nate politely before going to his girlfriend's side. Honestly, Nate thought the teen was a little intimidated.

The final three arrivals were Abby Carter, Allison Blake, and Kevin Blake. Allison couldn't even look at Nate, but Kevin walked up to him and dubbed him 'Not-Dad'. Nate rather liked the kid. He had spunk. Abby, however, went over to Nate and introduced herself to him.

She'd referred to herself as Jack's ex-wife. Nate felt jealous of her, but managed not to let it show. At least... he hoped he hadn't. As far as he knew, Abby Carter didn't even live in Eureka, so...

Nate halted that train of thought. Jack was in the process of dying; Nate didn't need to worry about whether he'd have a rival for Jack's affections at a time like this. He did need to worry about how to increase the likelihood of Jack's survival.

Henry, Zane, and Tess walked in and Zane headed straight over to Jo. The young scientist put his arms around the Deputy's waist as they stayed by Jack. The other two, however, came up to Nate.

"The laser has been completely fixed, Nate," Henry told him gently. "We should go ahead and download the data from you."

Nate wanted to protest, but what else could he do. Standing around here with everyone else wasn't going to do Jack any good and Jack had worked as hard as everyone else to make certain that Nate would have a chance to download the data without incident.

"Yeah... right." Nate followed Henry and Tess to the lab in sort of a daze, his mind still focused on Jack's problem. He settled into the chair, not really paying attention as the metal 'shield' dropped down to protect everyone outside from the laser. The red light was uncomfortable, but not painful, so he kept turning the problem of how to save Jack over in his mind.

If only there was a way to remove the compressed water molecules from Jack's system. Some sort of filtration, maybe? But then, how could they be certain they'd gotten it all?

The 'shield' lifted sooner than Nate expected and Manlius walked over, presumably to ask Nate a few questions about how he was doing. Henry and Tess were exclaiming, in subdued tones, about all the data they'd just collected. Nate's eyes, however, noticed something he hadn't paid any attention to before.

There was a giant, metal tub in the room.

"What is that for?" Nate asked, gesturing to the tub and ignoring Manlius insincere questions.

"That... oh, that was a backup method of collecting the data from you," Manlius answered. "It would have required you to be immersed in a liquid while the data was sifted out of you to be copied and replaced."

An idea began to form in Nate's mind and a slow smile lit up his face. "Could it be adapted to serve another function... such as sifting out compressed, synthetic water?"

-=-=-=

Nate paced back and forth as Manlius and Rivers put the final touches on the tub that would, with any luck, save Jack's life. He was actually out in the hall, having been sent there by Tess, who told him that his anxiousness was overly distracting. She'd led him into the corridor and told him to wait out there.

Tess had paused before going back inside and, when she turned back to him, she apologized. She told him that she'd spent all this time thinking of him as a high-tech computer when the truth was that he was a man and a pretty amazing one at that. Then she asked if they could be friends, which Nate agreed to without hesitation. He still thought she talked too much, but it was difficult to actively dislike the woman.

"We're finished," Tess exclaimed, hurrying out into the hall. "We've already alerted the infirmary; Carter's on his way up."

"It's about time," Nate grumbled, relief running through him as he refused to think about what might happen if this didn't work. He let Tess drag him inside and watched Manlius and Rivers flirt with each other as they waited for everyone else to arrive.

It felt like forever, but it was more like ten minutes when Jack was rolled into the room and moved into the water filled chamber. Nate tried to stay close, but he wound up stuck behind everyone else. Zoe noticed him, however, and pulled him over to stand with her, Lucas, and Abby. "Whatever happens," the teen told him, "thank you for trying so hard to save him."

"Manlius and Rivers are the ones who..."

"They didn't think of this," Zoe interrupted. "You did. That's how Dad will see it, too."

Nate smiled and ducked his head, looking up when Henry walked over. He glanced at Jack, who was sitting up in the water. The oxygen mask was gone from his face and he was obviously trying to put up a brave front for everyone who was so worried about him. It wasn't working all that well, though. Nate could see the fear in Jack's eyes.

"We've put him in a nutrient bath that ought to protect him from the radiation long enough for the syn molecules to be released," Henry explained to the group gathered there. "Once they're out, then we can all breathe easier... especially Jack."

"Thank you, Henry," Allison said softly, holding Kevin close as she stared at Jack fearfully. She was in love with Jack, Nate suddenly realized. She loved him, but her feelings for Nathan made her feel guilty about loving Jack when the father of her unborn child was dead.

Not for the first time, Nate wished that Stark hadn't died because everything was so complicated without him there.

Finally fully kitted out with goggles and an oxygen tank, Jack submerged himself in the solution. Manlius went over to the control desk as a clear 'shield' dropped down around the tank.

"Activating laser," Manlius announced. Immediately, the nutrient solution began to spark with blue energy and the whole room seemed to collectively hold its breath. "It's working on my end."

Fargo shook his head pensively. "I'm not tracking any release."

In the tank, Jack's body started to thrash as he started to drown again. Nate's hands curled into fists as he willed himself to stay where he was. There wasn't anything he could do right now aside from hope.

Zane and Jo clung to each other as they watched Jack. Zoe clutched Lucas' hand and buried her face against his shoulder. Tess had an arm around Allison's shoulders while both women held one of Kevin's hands. Abby closed her eyes and murmured a prayer.

"I don't know how much longer I can keep him exposed to this level of radiation," Manlius cautioned.

"We have release!" Fargo grinned up at the rest of the room. "The compressed molecules are coming out of his lungs intact. He's just got to hold on."

"He can do it," Allison said, tears in her eyes. "I know he can."

Jack suddenly went still, no longer thrashing around. "What happened?" Nate demanded, turning to Fargo.

The geeky scientist's eyes had lit up. "He's clear."

Manlius shut down the laser and then returned to the metal tub. Henry followed after him and the two of them helped pull Jack out of the tank.

Nate let out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. Jack was okay...

Jack was okay.

-=-=-=

"If you aren't careful this could become a habit," Abby teased.

Jack gave her a blank look. "What could become a habit?"

"You landing in the infirmary whenever I come to visit." Abby snickered at the annoyed expression that graced Jack's face. "I'm going back to LA tomorrow, but I'll be here again next weekend. I'll tell you more about that later, though, since there's someone who needs to talk to you alone. I'll just go run interference and keep the doctors out of here while you two chat." Abby left the infirmary as Allison walked in.

"How are you feeling?" Allison asked a tad awkwardly.

"Very tired... and maybe a little wary of all the water fixtures in Eureka that are filled with syn water." Jack grinned, earning a faint smile from Allison.

"You were very sneaky, bringing in Abby to talk with me. I'd completely forgotten that she was a psychiatrist," Allison finally said, after a few moments of silence.

"Well, you kind of needed someone to talk to..."

"You were right. I do need help to get through this. And Henry was right to place me on medical leave. I didn't see it yesterday, but today... talking with Abby has been enlightening. She told me that staying here in Eureka is killing me.

"I think she's right. I can't stay here anymore, Jack."

Hearing her say that hurt, but in a way Jack had known this was coming. Allison faded away a little bit more each day. Getting out of Eureka would help her get on with her life. "You know that no matter where you go, I'll always be there for you," Jack renewed his promise to her. "All you've got to do is pick up the phone and dial."

"I know. Thank you Jack," Allison let Jack pull her into a hug as she buried her face against his shoulder. After a few minutes she pulled away and sat down on the end of one of the hospital beds. "Tess has already decided to come with me; she feels guilty that she couldn't be here for me after Nathan died... and I've already decided that we'll be going to LA. I feel comfortable talking to Abby. I'm not afraid she'll be another Beverly Barlowe like I've been with the DoD appointed therapists."

"How's Kevin taking all of this?" Jack asked.

"He knows Nate isn't Nathan. I didn't do a very good job explaining it to him, but he knew anyway," Allison sighed and smiled. "Kevin's excited about moving and about having Tess living with us. It's like he knows something the rest of us don't... like everything's going to be okay...

"I'm going to miss you, Jack."

"This place... this town... it won't be the same without you, Allison."

"Jack..." Allison hesitated and then continued. "Don't you think it's about time you started calling me Allie?"

-=-=-=

There was a knock on the door and then Jack walked into the observation lounge to the lab that Nate had been staying in. The walls of the lab area were covered in scribblings and Nate was standing in front of the window, peering through the glass at all the things he'd written.

"Henry told me my handwriting is different than Stark's was; mine is easier to read." Nate said, not looking over at Jack.

"You're less guarded than he ever was," Jack responded, moving to stand by Nate. He watched the man instead of the room, though. "What's bothering you?"

"Is there always so much death in this place?" Nate asked, turning to Jack. "Stark's dead, Lieber's dead, those three women died today..."

"Sometimes these things just happen, whether we like it or not. But," Jack smiled, "the good news is that sometimes we get a happy ending."

"A happy ending, huh?" Nate echoed curiously. Hesitantly, he leaned over and kissed Jack lightly on the lips.

Jack's heart thudded and his eyes flicked closed for a moment before opening wide. "Nate..."

"I've been wanting to do that nearly all day," Nate confessed.

Jack licked his lips and then said huskily, "this is going to be so complicated."

Nate swallowed nervously. "Is being complicated a bad thing?"

"Sometimes," Jack shrugged. "Sometimes the best things in life are complicated. It's just... there's a lot you don't know and a lot... it's complicated." Nate started to back off, so Jack leaned in and kissed him, leading him into something a deeper than a mere peck on the lips. "I guess it's a good thing we both seem to like complicated things, huh?"

A/N – Well that's all for now, folks. Well, I suppose now that everything's been posted, I should start working on the next story, huh?

In the next story, Allison will already be in LA with Abby, Tess will be finishing up her project (the Story Nest) so that she can join the others in LA. About two weeks will have passed since this story, Zane will be off helping Taggart with the ice core, and Jack and Nathan are trying to be subtle... and not completely succeeding, much to Jo's amusement.


End file.
